Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Sometime last year, the remote key, car unlocker things (by all means someone tell me what they’re called so that I can forget it before I next need to describe them) for our car stopped working. Both of them at the same time. I thought to myself “It’s not the keys then!”.

So I called the place that not only services our car, but specialises in its type. I explained the problem. “Probably the keys”, they said, “the batteries will be dead.” I explained that it probably wasn’t the keys, and why, and mentioned that the little indicator lights were working on them, so the batteries weren’t dead.

They were sceptical. I arranged to take the car in.

I dropped it off in the morning, they said it’d be fixed by lunchtime.

When I called later, they said they were still working on it & could I drop by nearer 5pm.

I dropped by at 5pm.

A man greeted me, he led me to the car, and apologised because the problem wasn’t fixed. He brightly observed that they’d made some progress though “We know it’s not the keys.”

They weren’t able to continue working on it because a part needed to be sourced. I’d need to bring it back in & leave it for a day or two.

Some months passed. I finally made a time to take the car back in & get the keys fixed. That time was yesterday.

I explained the problem again, cheerily noting that they should check their service records for whatever it was they did or didn’t do last time.

I rang them at 4pm & asked how it was going. “It’ll be another hour at least”, they said, “but it WILL be finished today.”

I swung by at 5.30pm. The car was parked outside, presumably fixed. A woman greeted me, she said, “Unfortunately, the car isn’t finished yet. But we have made some progress… we know it’s not the keys.”